


Birthday Blues

by mickthekid



Series: wasting my young years [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Bad Parenting, Birthday, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Ukrainian Mickey, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 00:55:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11197071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickthekid/pseuds/mickthekid
Summary: “Hey, Gallagher.” Mickey can’t help the way the corners of his mouth turn upward. He believes the burning in his cheeks is because of the alcohol, his brain deems that more acceptable. “I’m kinda, sorta, very drunk.”“Wow, congrats.”“Are you,” Mickey lets out a burp, “are you makin’ fun o’ me?”---A look into Mickey's birthdays through the years.





	Birthday Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of a part two of the "young lover" one-shot, but can be read as a stand-alone.

_1994_

_Inside I was a child_

_That could not mend a broken wing_

_Outside I looked for a way_

_To teach my heart to sing_

Iggy hates Madonna. He’s only three, and he despises her with the same passion he hates the smell of alcohol in his dad’s breath whenever he picks him up. Iggy is positive his ears are going to suffer permanent damage over having to listen to the song again; it’s the fourth time in the four hours he’s been at the hospital. He would tell his mom to turn it off, but she’s a little distracted by the new baby boy in her arms.

“Isn’t he just the most beautiful thing, Ig?” Julia says to her son. Iggy shrugs, but he does rise to his toes to see the newborn a little better. The kid has dark hair, same as his mom. He’s small, too. The nurse whose clothes carried a faint smell of cigarettes said he was the smallest baby she’d seen this week.

Julia shifts to correct the child’s position on her bare chest, smiling, eyes drooped, as she feeds him. Iggy climbs back onto the chair next to his mom’s bed and ponders for a moment before saying, “Mama?”

“Hmm?” Julia answers, her eyes not leaving the child, though she does turn her head a little to indicate she’s listening.

“When’s tato coming?” Terry had been there for the labor, at least for a part of it, the part where the child came into the world, but he had to leave shortly after, leaving Iggy behind to keep his mother company.

Julia’s face contorts for a moment, only relaxing when she looks down again. “He’s gonna come pick you up soon, sweetie. Just got some things to take care of.”

“I’m tired,” Iggy tells her, emphasizing his point by yawning, small teeth peeking out from behind his thin lips.

“Me too, baby.” Julia smooths her hand over the newborn’s head. “Mikhailo agrees,” she giggles.

Mikhailo stops nursing, ending his dinner with a light kick of his leg and some baby noises that Iggy couldn’t describe if he tried to. Once Julia has pulled her hospital gown back over her breasts and has the baby safely tucked into her chest, she smiles at Iggy again. “I think,” she starts, licks her lips and lets out another soft giggle, “this baby’s gonna be the turning point of our lives. Don’t you think so, Ig?”

Iggy purses his lips, unsure of what his mom means. “I don’t know.”

His mom looks back down at the baby, at his tiny feet and chubby hands. The lip bite isn’t enough to keep her lips from widening into an even broader smile as she says: “Your tato’s gonna fall in love with him, too.”

\---

_1996_

It’s the rainiest day of the month when Mickey turns two. The weather forecast said to “not expect an umbrella to make a difference – you need a raincoat, boots and a hat to survive out there”. The thunderstorm keeps a lot of people inside their homes for the day, there are no kids playing tag outside. The sun is hiding behind dark clouds.

But that’s okay, because the Milkovich house isn’t a stranger to a good party. The thunder provides the background music for the occasion together with the laughter of Terry’s friends coming from the living room. For Terry, it’s a decent get-together.

Jamie, Iggy, Mickey, and their mom are in the kitchen, eating their small pieces of the chocolate cake Jamie had stolen from the corner store a few blocks over. It’s cold, the taste of cardboard recognizable in the mix, but to Mickey it’s a treat all the same.

Julia is sitting beside Mickey, one hand on the back of his seat as she watches him eat his piece, one hand on the upper side of her round stomach. There are some crumbs next to her hand which Mickey would grab if he had longer arms, but he doesn’t tell his mom that. The way Julia is smiling makes Mickey smile through a mouthful of cake, and Iggy snorts beside him. “You look like a chipmunk!”

“Don’t shout, Ig,” Julia says as she’s wiping frosting off the corner of Mickey’s mouth. “Good?”

Mickey nods, his smile pleased before he sees the form of his dad appear in the doorway behind his mom. “We got any more cake?” Terry asks. He’s got a bottle in his hand, and he’s making quick work of gulping it all down as he stares at the back of Julia’s head with that everlasting scowl on his face.

“No, we’re all done,” Julia says. She brushes the crumbs off her stomach as she turns in her chair so that she can look at Terry. “Your friends want something?”

“Nah, we’re goin’ out.”

“But there’s a storm outside, baby.”

Mickey jumps at the unexpected noise the glass bottle makes when Terry sets it down next to the sink. “Ya think I don’t fuckin’ know that?”

“No, no, but you need to be careful.”

“It’s not the fuckin’ end of the world out there.“

“But you’ve been drinking, baby, and it’s harder to see when it’s rai—“

For all his gray hair, Terry still has the reflexes of a twenty-year-old soldier. In two seconds, he’s managed to stride across the small kitchen and grab Julia by the wrist. “Stop fuckin’ whinin’!”

To Mickey, his dad’s growl sounds worse than the thunderstorm outside. It’s gruff and grave, like it’s coming from deep inside of him, the scariest sound Mickey knows. Jamie has stood up from his seat, eyes as wide as Julia’s as they look into Terry’s small, squinted ones. Iggy shifts in his chair but casts his gaze down into his own lap, but Mickey is lost. He looks at his dad, then his mom, at his brothers, then back at his mom again. The grip Terry has on Julia’s wrist is tight enough for his blunt nails to leave ugly marks in their wake. Terry’s breathing is shallow, his body stiff as a board. The arm that isn’t in Terry’s tight grip Julia has in front of her stomach like a barrier, barely enough to go around the bump.

For a few seconds, it looks like a picture with Mickey as the lone viewer.

Then the spell is broken when a lightning strikes, lighting up the room. Terry tugs on Julia’s arm once before finally letting go. He curses under his breath on his way back into the living room, but Julia pays no mind to that. She rubs her wrist with her hand before she shifts toward Mickey again, running her hand through his hair. “You okay, sweetie?”

Mickey goes willingly when his mom prompts him to climb into her embrace. He has to be careful when he settles against her chest, his arms around her neck and legs tangling next to her belly. He buries his wet face into her neck and breathes in, smelling a mix of sweat and the perfume she uses, a calming scent.

Mickey’s two-year-old brain can’t understand the extent of it all, but he knows enough.

He knows enough when Iggy sniffs behind him and gets up, stomping back into his room. He knows enough when his dad’s loud laugh echoes in the house before the front door slams shut, making his mom wince.

He knows enough when he’s lying in his bed and can hear the sobs coming from his parents’ bedroom, right by his ear on the other side of the wall.

\---

_1998_

Mickey is almost four years old when his mom leaves for a whole week for the first time in his life.

Immediately after waking up he stumbles out of his room and peeks into his parents’ bedroom, expecting to see his mom in bed already – Jamie had said she would be back when he woke up.

But there is only one big lump on the bed, and that’s Mickey’s dad, lying on his stomach, snoring loudly like he always does. He’s spread out on the mattress like a starfish, but there’s still enough room for Julia to crawl in beside him.

“Mama…” Mickey says quietly. He walks into the empty living room to check the couch, though his mom rarely sleeps in there, not even when she comes home in the middle of the night. Mickey climbs onto the couch, sitting right next to a wet spot on one of the dark cushions. The air in the room is stale, no one had bothered to open the windows to get rid of the cigarette smoke left behind the night before.

There’s a phone on the armrest of the couch – Jamie’s, he and their mom are the only ones who carry one around. Mickey bites his lip for a moment as he stares at it. He thinks he can still remember his mom’s number from when she had taught it to him a few months back for… emergencies. He hadn’t dialed it then, though. Hadn’t been able to because Terry had got mad. Mickey’s wrist still aches occasionally as an angry reminder.

Mickey picks up the phone and punches in the digits, eyebrows drawn, bottom lip caught between his teeth. He raises the phone to his ear and listens to the dial tone. “Please answer, mama. Please.”

The beep-beep rings in his ear a couple of times, agonizingly slow. But then it goes silent for a second, then through comes an odd scratching noise. “Mama?” Mickey whispers into the phone, pulls his knees to his chest. The line goes static, then there’s a low cough. “Mama?”

“ _Hello?”_

“Mama?” Mickey’s heart picks up. He starts blabbering Ukrainian into the phone, stumbling over his own tongue as he goes. His eyes burn with unshed tears as the person on the other line coughs again.

“ _Fuckin’ slow down, I don’t speak fuckin’ Russian_.” The person, a woman whose voice is scratchy like sand paper, pauses again to cough. “ _The fuck’re you, kid?”_

“Mickey! Where’s my mama?”

The line goes silent for a while. “ _You Julia’s boy_?” the woman asks. Mickey nods frantically, almost dropping the phone at the mention of his mom’s name.

“Yes!” He winces at how high his voice is, looks back toward his parents’ bedroom door. His dad is still snoring in his room, but Mickey still lowers his voice as he repeats himself into the phone: “Yes.”

The woman sighs. “ _Fuck. Your mom’s… occupied_.”

Mickey frowns. “She’s supposed to be _here_.”

“ _Fuck, kid, dunno what to tell you_.” The woman pauses for a moment, her voice muffled as she moans. “ _Uh. Yeah, Christ, you just gotta—you gotta wait_.”

“Is she okay?” There’s a painful lump in his throat that makes it harder for him to speak properly, but he pulls through.

“ _Yeah. Jesus, it’s her fuckin’ kid on the line, Frank, fuckin’ hold on… yeah, Julia’s kid… he’s fuckin’ asking ‘bout her, what the fuck am I supposed to tell him?_ ” The voice is distant now, speaking away from the receiver. A man says something incoherent in the background. “ _He’s like, three or somethin’. Is she still out? Oh, shit, yeah_ —”

Mickey presses the red button to end the call when she starts moaning again. Without a second thought he throws the phone back onto the couch. It pounces off and lands onto the wooden floor with a rattle, but Mickey barely realizes. He rubs his chubby fingers against his nose, wipes the snot onto the dirty couch cushions.

His mom’s supposed to be there. She’s always there on his birthday.

\---

_2001_

“Shut the fuck up, Mandy!” Terry howls as Mickey opens his bedroom door. He flinches at the voice, but makes his way toward the kitchen anyway.

Mandy doesn’t shut the fuck up. If anything, her cries get even louder, bordering on screeching that will surely make her throat sore for days. When Mickey reaches the doorway separating the kitchen from the living room, he’s greeted by the back of his father’s balding head. Mickey’s mom is standing a few feet away from Terry, a wailing Mandy behind her, small hands clutching at the hem of her mom’s shirt.

Julia is speaking to Mandy in Ukrainian, words soft and quiet like she doesn’t want Terry to mistake them for anything else. Her bangs are falling into her eyes as she tips her head to look down at her daughter. Her slim frame looks even weaker next to Terry’s beer gut and strong, closet-like shoulders. Terry could snap her neck with one swift motion and he wouldn’t feel a thing – in every sense of the expression.

“You gotta teach your kids not to take my fuckin’ shit!” Terry screams, a finger pointed toward Julia. “One day she’s gonna take a fuckin’ gun and blow her own goddamn brains out ‘cause you’re the worst fuckin’ mom on this goddamn earth! You want that?” Julia is shaking her head silently, head bowed. Her shoulders shake as Terry continues screaming insults her way.

Mickey finally steps into the kitchen and walks past Terry to his baby sister. “You gotta get cleaned, Mandy. Let’s go.” Mandy’s eyes widen as she stares up at him, mouth agape.

“But mama…”

“Let’s _go_.” Mickey’s hold on Mandy’s hand is tight as he tugs her away from their mom. Julia isn’t crying yet, for the sake of her children, though the effort is redundant when Terry is there, threatening presence a stark contrast to Julia’s weak one.

There’s a heavy silence behind them before Terry swears again, this time in Ukrainian, and a sharp sound of a slap echoes in the house. Mickey’s steps are swift as he leads them into the bathroom as Mandy’s sobs increase in volume, accompanied by the noises Terry’s fist makes as it repeatedly punches some new color into their mom’s pale skin.

\---

_2004_

Mickey’s tenth birthday present is a bruise to the side of his face from Terry.

His dad casts those like newspapers, it’s his trademark, his logo. That’s what Mickey’s mom used to tell him when he was smaller: “Your tato has his own way of showing us he cares. It means he’s proud of having us.” Mickey’s come to realize that it’s bullshit his mom made up to make him feel better. Terry’s only pride is his own drug dealing business. He doesn’t give a fuck about his offspring; even Jamie and Colin are just free workforce to him.

Julia isn’t around, but Mickey hasn’t needed his mom to patch him up after one of Terry’s rampages in years. He waits until Terry has calmed down by a bottle of whiskey and an Animal Planet documentary before he locks himself inside the bathroom and assesses the damage.

The red mark is shaped like a lake on the otherwise pale skin of Mickey’s cheek. It stretches from the corner of his mouth all the way to where his ear begins. It throbs painfully when Mickey drags his pointer finger along the lines, but he barely reacts to it. He considers applying some of his mom’s makeup on the mark, but it would get smudged enough during the day that everyone would notice he was wearing makeup. Terry would throw another punch if he were to find out. At least a bruise is manly.

One of Mickey’s teeth also suffered damage in the blow. He moves his tongue along the loose piece of bone before he yanks it out with little trouble. It’s a primary tooth, it’s only a good thing.

When Mickey opens the bathroom door to go back to his room, he comes face-to-face with Mandy. Her hair is in a messy ponytail and she’s still in her flower-print pajamas. Her appearance screams tired, but the way her eyes bore into Mickey tells a different story.

“Tato’s yelling woke me up,” she answers the unspoken question. Mickey’s nod is stiff as he closes the bathroom door behind him. “Mama’s not here?”

Mickey sighs. “No. You need somethin’?”

“No, just… where’s Ig?”

“Still sleepin’, probably,” Mickey says. “That or he’s out with his crew. Why?”

“Worried about mama,” Mandy admits, voice wavering slightly as she wraps her arms around herself.

“Jesus, Mandy.” Mickey walks into his room, out of earshot. When he’s got the door shut, he turns to his baby sister with a scowl on his face. “Mom’s okay, Mandy, seriously. She’s always been okay, why the hell would this time be any different, huh?”

Mandy shrugs, sniffs, squeezes herself tighter. “’Cause today’s your birthday.”

Mickey leans his head to the side, looks past Mandy at his blank bedroom walls. “Yeah? So, what? You think mom’s gonna ditch whatever weird friends she’s got to come celebrate with us?” He wipes his thumb across his lip. “Mandy, she doesn’t care.”

“Yes, she does!”

“No,” Mickey bites the inside of his cheek, “she doesn’t. But you know what? That’s fine. She can have her friends if she’s happier with them. Would you want her to always be around? Be dad’s punching bag twenty-four hours a day?”

Mandy puffs out her cheeks with pursed lips. Sometimes it’s so apparent how similar Mandy and their mom look: from their dark, thick hair to the blue eyes and shy smiles, Mandy is a miniature of Julia. Mickey every so often wishes she wouldn’t grow up to look like their mom, but sometimes he hopes she will. Mickey thinks their mom is the most beautiful person in the world, and Mandy would be a strong second.

The difference between the two would be that Mandy wouldn’t abandon her fucking family.

“You’re so weird,” Mandy eventually says. “I don’t know if you love or hate her more.”

Mickey has a hard time disagreeing with that statement.

\---

_2007_

The first time Mickey got a taste of alcohol was at one of Terry’s parties – whether it was a getting out of jail party or a celebration of a successful drug deal, Mickey couldn’t tell you. But he was nine, and Terry made him take a shot with all the adults in the house. It had been the worst thing Mickey had ever swallowed down, but he had pulled through like the man that he wasn’t.

It’s the real deal now. Mickey is officially thirteen, and once a Milkovich hits his teen years, he has to steal a six-pack of some shitty beer and get “absolutely fuckin’ shit-faced”, like Iggy had so eloquently put it. It’s like a rite of passage, going back generations, apparently.

So, the first thing Mickey does when Friday night hits is go to the corner store run by the Muslim family with the annoying kids, get the beer while the guy is out back, and go to the abandoned building a few blocks away from the house. It’s a safe distance, no one ever goes there because it’s been said to collapse any minute due to poor construction. It’s been like that for years now, so either the city just forgot about it or they just don’t care if some stupid kid gets crushed to death.

Mickey’s been told that anything tastes good once you get used to it. He doesn’t know the accuracy of that statement, but he finds that something like Bud Light isn’t that hard to swallow down. He also finds that his head gets hazy extremely fast.

At some point between his second and third can he’s managed to fish his beat-up phone out of his jeans’ pocket. He dials the number that he’s got himself to memorize over the past year, and waits with his back on the cold floor as the dial tone rings in his ear.

“ _Hello_?”

“Gallagher!”

“ _Uh, who’s this_?” Mickey thinks for a moment, wracks his brain for a name he probably would have a hard time remembering even if he were sober.

“Lip.”

“ _No,_ I’m _Lip_.” The boy on the other end pauses for a second. “ _Is this Mickey_?”

“Where’s Ian?” Mickey focuses on a patch of graffiti on the wall. It kind of looks like a dick.

Lip sighs on the line. “ _Ian’s eatin’—“_

“ _Is it Mickey_?” a young boy’s voice rings out in the background. “ _Gimme the phone, Lip!_ ”

Mickey focuses on the background noises. There’s a clinking of plates and glasses, the TV is on, the sound unnecessarily loud. Someone coughs and shouts something. Then a high-pitched, energetic voice speaks into the phone: “ _Mickey_!”

“Hey, Gallagher.” Mickey can’t help the way the corners of his mouth turn upward. He believes the burning in his cheeks is because of the alcohol, his brain deems that more acceptable. “I’m kinda, sorta, _very_ drunk.”

“ _Wow, congrats_.” Mickey frowns at the graffiti dick.

“Are you,” he lets out a burp, “are you makin’ fun o’ me?”

Ian snorts like a pig. “ _You’re gross. What do you think_?”

“It’s pretty fun. But I think it’d be fun _-ner_ if you came, too.” Mickey takes a sip from his third can, sets it down and rolls over onto his stomach. “You ever been drunk?”

“ _No_.”

“Aren’t you, like, ten?”

“ _Eleven. Fiona said I’d die if I drank_.” Ian’s voice drops in volume. Mickey can’t hear the TV in the background anymore. Ian’s probably gone up into his room to avoid Fiona’s yelling. She doesn’t like Mickey very much, for obvious reasons.

“We gotta get drunk sometime. Together. Ain’t that what people do?”

“ _Sure, Mick_.” Ian’s smiling again, it’s evident in the way he drags out the nickname, a friendly tease.

“Stop fuckin’ laughin’,” Mickey burps again, “at me.”

_“I’m not laughing_!” He is. He’s got the most contagious laugh Mickey’s ever heard: it’s booming and more like a yell of surprise at times, like when Mickey says something that catches Ian off-guard and he just starts laughing like it’s being punched out of him. Mickey thinks it’s one of the best sounds he’s ever heard.

“Whatever.”

“ _Whatever_.”

“I’m serious, though,” Mickey continues. “When you’re, I dunno, thirteen, I’mma get you _super_  wasted and we can be drunk together. It’ll be cool.”

Ian just laughs at him, this time not even trying to cover it up, and Mickey takes it as a yes.

\---

_2011_

Mickey’s head feels almost as heavy as the dick in his ass.

He’s got Ian behind him, the grip of his large hands bruising on Mickey’s hips as Ian fucks into him in a rhythm bordering on irregular. Mickey’s fists clench in the plain white sheets of Ian’s bed each time Ian thrusts forward, the force nearly enough to send Mickey collapsing face first into the mattress.

Ian’s blabbering things that make little sense to Mickey, be it because Ian’s pretty much blinded by his pleasure or because Mickey’s brain is so hazy he wouldn’t be able to react to anything other than the heat pooling in his stomach. Mickey had told Ian to shut the fuck up numerous times when their thing first started, but that’s been thrown out the door now. And maybe, just maybe, the weightless words Ian likes to moan into his ear make his dick twitch in a way a hand doesn’t.

Without much thinking, Mickey reaches behind himself to tap Ian’s hip with his fingers. “Fuck, slow down.”

“Huh?” Ian says like an idiot. Mickey rolls his eyes as he pushes back and forward, feeling the tug as Ian pulls out. The whine he lets loose is involuntary and he immediately cringes at himself, but he doesn’t let Ian catch onto that. He pushes Ian onto his back, ignores the protesting grunt of the worn mattress as he straddles Ian’s hips.

“Gonna ride you.” Mickey distantly hears a blissed-out curse fall from Ian’s lips as Mickey seats himself back onto Ian’s cock and starts bouncing. He places his hands flat onto Ian’s biceps, enjoying the way the muscles feel underneath his palms. He leans forward a little and lets out an unintentional ‘ _oh_!’ as the tip of Ian’s dick hits his prostate.

Ian moans. “You’re so fucking hot,” he says like the phrase isn’t done to death already.

“Shut the fuck up,” Mickey tells him automatically, only because that’s part of their thing. Ian just grins that cheeky grin up at him as he takes a hold of Mickey’s cock, sending Mickey’s eyes to the back of his head. “ _Fuck_ ,” Mickey groans through a lip bite, lets his head fall back to expose the bitemark on the side of his throat. Ian lifts his own hips up to match Mickey’s moves, but he gives up when Mickey leans forward again and starts rotating his hips, completely bottomed out. Mickey’s blunt nails dig into Ian’s skin, the drag of his cock against his prostate almost too much for him to handle.

“Shitshit _shit_ ,” Ian curses hurriedly, eyes closing as the heat in his abdomen spreads. “Gonna come,” he warns, but it’s redundant. Mickey urges Ian’s hand to move faster as he continues bouncing up and down, bringing Ian over the edge and into ecstasy while moving just so his cock hits Mickey’s prostate head-on with each thrust, making Mickey shake and moan through his own orgasm.

Mickey’s legs are quick to give out from under him and he falls to the side with a final grunt. He rubs his aching knees with his palms, they’re no doubt red from the friction, but he manages a pleased laugh as he looks back at Ian’s red face. Ian replies with his own breathy chuckle before he reaches a hand to the floor to retrieve Mickey’s discarded tank top. He uses it to wipe Mickey’s cum off his chest and chin, and when he tries to do the same for Mickey, Mickey swats at his hands and snatches the filthy shirt from him, wiping his thighs clean of Ian’s jizz, though it’s a pointless action as most of the cum’s gonna leak out later anyway.

“Should use fuckin’ condoms, man,” Mickey comments once he’s thrown his shirt over their spent bodies. “Always a fuckin’ mess.”

“So buy some,” Ian says through a yawn.

“You’re the one that’ll use them, bitch, ‘s your job.”

The shrug Ian gives looks awkward against the mattress. “All right. Though you look pretty fucking hot with my jizz on your thighs…” Mickey hits his arm for real this time.

“Fuck. Off. You got a fetish or somethin’?”

“Dunno.” Ian picks up a joint, his last one, and lights it up. He takes a drag before turning his head toward Mickey, who’s forced to lay on his side due to the limited space on the bed. “Good?”

Mickey snorts. “You fuckin’ know it was, bitch. Why you gotta make me boost up your massive ego, huh?”

“Not what I meant.” Ian’s smile has fallen off his face. He passes the joint to Mickey. “You doin’ okay?”

The way Ian sounds when he’s serious, like he cares, always has Mickey conflicted: does he punch him until that small crease of his brow is replaced by a large bruise, or does he answer like a normal person probably would? “I’m fuckin’ fine,” he says eventually, after he’s inhaled some smoke to calm down his fussy brain.

“That’s good,” says Ian. He seems to consider his next words for a second before he says: “It’s your birthday today.”

Mickey leans his head backward the tiniest bit. “How’d you figure that out?”

“Mandy.”

Mickey huffs. “Yeah. What about it?”

Ian grabs the joint from Mickey. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“’Cause it doesn’t matter, man.”

“’Course it does,” Ian objects. “It’s important. I would’ve gotten you a present and shit.” He blows some smoke toward the ceiling in crooked circles, side-eyeing Mickey.

Sniffing, Mickey shakes his head. “Was never a big deal when I was, like, four or five or fuckin’ ten. Never got any presents or any of that fancy shit.”

“Mandy said your mom baked cakes for you,” Ian says. “And I thought, now that she’s, you know…”

“She did that when we were babies,” Mickey interrupts, “and Terry ate most of it, anyway. She stopped givin’ a shit pretty soon after Mandy was born. It doesn’t fuckin’ matter anymore.”

“It matters to me.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mickey groans. He rubs the heels of his palms against his eyes in irritation. “You’re so fuckin’…”

“What?” Ian asks. The smirk returns with raised eyebrows as he turns to his side after dumping the joint onto the ashtray next to the bed. “Tell me, what?” he demands, laughing as Mickey shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “What?”

“Fuck off.” But Mickey’s got a small smirk on his face as he punches Ian’s arm. He looks down and up at Ian’s face again, an eyebrow raised like a challenge. “Ready to go again?”

Ian answers by surging forward and pushing Mickey flat on his back into the mattress, a wide grin on his face as he moves down Mickey’s flushed body once more.

\---

_2012_

The smell of something sweet hits Mickey’s nostrils immediately after he’s set foot into the house. He hangs his jacket on the hook next to the door before making his way to the living room, expecting to see the whole Gallagher clan spread out on the couches, watching some boring documentary about how bears breed or cows die.

But the living room is empty except for a lone cat sleeping on an armchair – Mickey suspects it’s some stray Carl has found, at least hopes so. He eyes it for a moment before he makes his way through the room and into the kitchen, loosening his scarf around his neck as he does so. The smell reminds him of how he hasn’t eaten for seven hours and his stomach makes a noise to protest that fact.

The kitchen is empty too. Mickey throws the scarf onto the back of a chair and makes his way to the fridge, ready to ease the unpleasant feeling in his stomach. But before he can open the door, something in the corner of his eye catches his attention.

There’s a dark-brown cake on top of the counter. It’s freshly-baked judging by the smell, and there are candles spread out across the frosting on the surface. When Mickey quickly counts, there are eighteen of them.

“What the fuck?” Mickey says to the cake. He looks around the room again like he’s expecting someone to jump out from behind the table or the fridge, screaming “haha, your face” while taking pictures. But nothing happens. No Lip with his stupid face, not even Carl comes out to set his cat on fire with the candles.

Mickey has a few more seconds to wonder what the cake is doing there before the sound of steps descending the creaky stairs catches his attention. Mickey turns around, face in a deep frown, and is greeted by the sight of Ian walking toward him, a lopsided smile on his face and an arm behind his back.

“What the fuck?” Mickey asks again.

“Happy birthday,” Ian says like it’s the most obvious thing to say when faced with Mickey’s irritated confusion.

Mickey raises an expressive eyebrow. “What?”

“Jesus, Mick,” Ian laughs. He places a box wrapped in paper – the kind of paper that’s used for wrapping Christmas presents, mind you – onto the counter. He fishes out a lighter from his pocket and begins lighting up the candles.

“Gallagher…”

“Okay,” Ian says. “Are you gonna freak out ‘cause I did somethin’ for your birthday?” He lights up the last candle and turns around to face Mickey.

Mickey gnaws on his lip; he has to think about that for a second. “Nah, man. But you don’t gotta do shit like this, fuckin’ cakes and candles…”

“But I did.” Ian sends him a pointed look. “I baked this,” he points at the cake, “you can probably tell. And I kicked everyone out of the house so we can celebrate alone.”

Mickey doesn’t miss the implications the sentence holds. “Oh, yeah?” He doesn’t bother hiding the crooked smile tugging at his lips as he takes a step forward.

“Yeah. But first you’re gonna open your present and taste the cake. Debbie helped me with the frosting. It should be edible.”

Mickey picks up the box with the reindeer wrapping paper. He shakes it a little before ripping it open. “At least it’s fuckin’ festive, Jesus Christ.”

Ian scoffs. “It was either that or a piss-covered newspaper.”

Once he’s got the wrapping paper off and the brown box open, Mickey snorts. “The fuck? Since when’ve people given condoms as a birthday gift?”

“You’re the one who fuckin’ brought it up.”

“Yeah, a year ago.” Mickey taps the pack of rubbers against the palm of his other hand. “A little late now.”

“You don’t think it’s funny? Condoms for your birthday. Like ‘haha, it’s your birthday, please don’t make a baby’ funny, you know?”

Mickey stares at him for a second. “Think you and me got that problem taken care of.”

Ian shrugs a shoulder, that small smile back on his face. “True.”

“You’re a fuckin’ idiot, man,” Mickey tells him, but he’s smiling about it. Mickey looks toward the back door before he steps forward and plants a brief kiss onto Ian’s lips. When he thanks Ian, he’s close enough for their lips to brush against each other. Ian’s smile only widens.

The chocolate cake, only slightly burnt around the edges, turns out to be the best thing Mickey’s tasted in a long time.


End file.
